I thought the list members might get a chuckle or two out of this Global Eye column of the St. Petersburg Times (Russia) #407, Tuesday, October 13, 1998. It a publication for the expatriate English speaking colony in St. Petersburg. It can be found at http://www.time.spb.ru GLOBAL EYE America's Cup The glorious beacon of American democracy, which has been on such noble and vigorous display in recent months, shone ever more brightly in the great state of Georgia last week, as the two combatants for a seat in the august U.S. Senate dueled, augustly of course, with a bold new weapon in the arsenal of freedom: those telling yellow samples, urine tests. The first shot was fired a few months back by Democratic contender Michael Coles, the cookie-making millionaire trying to unseat incumbent Republican Sen. Paul Coverdell. Coles announced that he had taken a drug test and been declared of pure blood, Slate Magazine reports. He then challenged Coverdell to let fly with a flood of bodily fluids to prove that he, too, had chaste platelets. Coverdell promptly put his urine where his mouth is (metaphorically speaking, of course), and said his blood t'aint never been tainted with none of them thar abusive substances. However, in these Clintonian times, where what goes unsaid may speak volumes more than one's actual utterances (especially when the latter are uttered to grand juries), Coles was not satisfied with Coverdell's cleanliness. Sure, the Senator had no illegal dope clogging his arteries: but what about legal drugs, eh? Specifically, what about anti-depressants? (This is a variation on the old "When did you stop beating your wife?" ploy, oft-used by another illustrious Georgia politician: Newt Gingrich.) Coverdell dallied over his response to this incredibly vital political issue, but - apparently afraid that a shred of dignity might creep into the race - finally chugged down a few bottles of Evian and last week produced a second cup o' kindness which proved he had not been taking anti-depressants. However, Georgia voters, faced with a choice between these two tinkling titans in next month's election, undoubtedly are. Undercover Operatives Despite all the kidney-punching down in Georgia, there is at least one man in Washington dedicated to elevating the low and noxious discourse of American politics today. We speak, of course, of Larry Flynt: patriot, publisher, pornographer extraordinnaire. Flynt, best known for his raunch-rag, Hustler (and for the landmark Supreme Court case that upheld his right to fantasize in public about the Rev. Jerry Falwell having sex with his own mother), this week offered $1 million to anyone who could prove they had committed adultery with "a current member of the United States Congress or a high-ranking government official," Reuters reports. Flynt blazoned his offer in a full-page Washington Post advertisement, guaranteeing "confidentiality" and scrupulously demanding "documentary evidence" of the high-level hanky-panky (which is, admittedly, a loftier standard of journalistic ethics than you'll find in, say, The Drudge Report, News week, or anything owned by Rupert Murdoch). The defiant decadent also renewed an earlier offer to hire Ken Starr for Hustler's stable of porn writers. Flynt wrote a fan letter to the First Puritan last month, saying, "After reading the Starr Report I am impressed by the salacious and voyeuristic nature of your work. The quality and quantity of material you have assembled contains more pornographic references than those provided by 'Hustler Online' services this month." Starr declined the offer, of course. Flynt may be rolling in filthy lucre, but there's no way he could match the cool $50 million the prosecutor is pulling down on the government payroll. Frontal Assault "Be All That You Can Be." "We're Looking for a Few Good Men." "Aim High." The famous recruiting slogans of the U.S. military took on new meaning this week with the Pentagon's announcement that it will spend $50 million on Viagra next year. While the cream of the nation's military manhood will no doubt rise to the top with this infusion of taxpayer largess, the Pentagon says most of the boodle will actually be spent on older soldiers - the kind of ancient warriors who have left the field and moved on to important desk jobs in places like, well, the Pentagon. But the brass are not being profligate with this seed money, The Associated Press reports. Pentagon spokesmen said recipients will be limited to only six pills per month , and "lost, stolen or destroyed tablets will not be replaced." (It is not clear if this limit applies to the Commander-in-Chief, however.) Of course, one doesn't like to cast aspersions on the red-blooded risibility of the nation's defenders, but it is interesting to note that the Pentagon said it had to establish a firm $50 million limit on the capsule erector sets - or else demand for Viagra would overwhelm the military's pharmaceutical budget. Next up: Vladdie Zhirinovsky demands Viagra for the Russian armed forces - and Duma members, too. "We must be standing tall when we cross swords with the Americans in the coming global conflict!" he declares. Loose Talk A picture, as we all know, is worth a thousand words. Unfortunately, moving pictures are afflicted with the disease of dialogue - a few wads of inexpensive filler thrown in to keep the multizillion-dollar action sequences from crashing into each other. These bits of chatty excelsior are usually witless enough in the original tongue, but when they are rendered into subtitles for a foreign audience, the result is often a form of demented zen haiku: unfathomable aphorisms and paradoxical pronouncements which, surely, must hide some deeper truth within. This week, the Guardian raked the virtual pages of the "Lost in the Translation" Web site, and culled a few shards of poesy from "actual English subtitles" used in tough-guy Hong Kong films. Such as: "I got knife scars more than the number of your leg's hair!" "Fatty, you with your thick face have hurt my instep." "Take my advice, or I'll spank you without pants!" (Or was that from the Monica Lewinsky tapes?) "Damn, I'll burn you into a BBQ chicken!" "A normal person wouldn't steal pituitaries." "How can you use my intestines as a gift?" And finally, a line that could serve as the epigraph for every "action" film of the past 20 years: "The bullets inside me are very hot. Why do I feel so cold?" GO TO TOP OF PAGE Today's Issue | News and Business | SPT-Index | Opinion | Arts + Features Global Eye | Community Billboard | Events Listings | Job Opportunities Real Estate Ads | Classifieds | Special Features | Archive | Search About Us | Advertising Info | Subscription Independent Media | The Moscow Times copyright The St. Petersburg Times 1998
